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Hashing

A dish of sliced cooked meat simmered in a thickened gravy with onions, bread, pepper, salt, ketchup, and cold gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hashing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stock

  1. Remove bones from the meat and marrow, break them, and boil in previously boiled meat liquor or water with onions and toasted bread.

  2. Boil for at least 30 minutes, then strain off the liquid, removing fat and scum.

  3. Return the liquid to the saucepan, with or without onions.

Make the hash

  1. Cut the meat into thin slices, about the width of a finger and half its length.

  2. Flour the meat and season with pepper, salt, and optional ketchup and cold gravy.

  3. Stir the meat into the saucepan, shaking to prevent sticking, and simmer until the gravy thickens.

Serve

  1. Serve with toasted bread snippets around the dish.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Ketchup + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Coats the meat slices so the gravy thickens smoothly and the meat does not stick.
Bones
Release gelatin and flavour into the liquid, giving the stock body.
Cold gravy
Adds moisture and savoury depth, thickening the sauce as it simmers.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma to the stock.

The step that matters

Stirring the meat into the saucepan. Floured meat can clump or scorch on the base of the pan. Shaking and stirring keep the pieces separate and the simmering gravy evenly thickened.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, bread, pepper, ketchup, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, bread, pepper, ketchup, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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